REALLY?

This sentiment couldn’t be more WRONG,

That’s EXACTLY what they need from him… but more importantly, that’s EXACTLY what they need from a lot more people on that team. Every single defensemen needs to take a note from Ward, and stop leaving their goalie(whoever it ends up being on any given night) hung out to dry. Mike Green and John Carlson… I’m talking to you two more than anyone else. Ward is one of the only Capitals willing to battle on the boards and usually wins the puck. The same type of play that I really missed when Donald Brashear and Matt Bradley were playing for DC.

Serioually what is it with these GMs giving out long term contracts based on one good playoff run, or one decent year among others that weren’t so decent? I could see trying it for one year or something, but four years based on one playoff run? Horrible idea, especially in the hard cap world.

Ok, I’ll bite…they might need it but they shouldn’t “expect” any defensive 3rd line forward to be scoring.

He is leading the team in +/- by the way….

Has he been great? No

Is he overpaid? Probably

Is he doing worse than a rational person might have expected? Not really.

Second, the Caps made a huge mistake in signing Joel Ward. This was obvious from day 1. I know statistics don’t say everything….but Ward was 311 out of 336 in goals scored per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time in 2010-11 (minimum 50 games). It’s nice that he showed up in the playoffs, but how could the Caps ignore that that small sample was completely unrelated to his career averages?!?!

The Caps desperately needed depth at center to take some pressure off Backstrom and help Semin. Instead, they offered $3MM to f-ing Joel Ward. Now the Caps have Marcus Johannson (who I like, as a winger), Keith Aucoin and Matthieu Perreault at center, and Ward has finally been scratched. Awesome.

Worst signing ever. Well, Gomez is pretty terrible, too.

Let’s Go Buffalo!